The Glass in Your Eyes
by slire
Summary: Happily ever after depends on how hard you look. The war with Voldemort still rages—inside Harry's head. Dark, but simplistic.


**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter © JK Rowling

.

.

**The Glass in Your Eyes**

.

.

_"The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well."_

—Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

.

.

The war ends before it even started, with a Dark Lord's fall, impassive red eyes locked with the boy he failed to kill.

His death will be celebrated as a holiday in the Wizarding World. The first month, everyone parties 'till they drop. Feasts, balls, banquets... all to signify how they're entering an age of light. What it really is though, is a chance to forget, the stink of alcohol nearly driving out the stink of death. Stories of grief are exchanged on the full packed floors in pubs and mansions and streets. They cry, they drink, they forget. They move on.

One might find Harry Potter the back on a party, quiet, withdrawn, alone. "PTSD," Hermione tells those sober enough who ask. "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Common among war veterans." All around him, people move on. He's is the only one who can't.

But then again, he's also the only one hearing voices.

Or rather, one voice—one that belongs to the man the Wizarding World is celebrating the death of.

.

.

It started as a little more than a whisper. Like a rustle. Harry would ask who's calling his name. Nobody answered. If it continued, he'd repeat his question. When there were people around, they'd scrutinize him, so he'd use Hermione's explanation. But the whispering got louder.

_Harry... Potter._..

A pause. The voice was deep, guttural, and rasped, as if trying to fight through a membrane.

_Harry Potter._ It is closer than ever.

(He imagines a bony, white hand reaching for him.)

The nightmare awakens him. The clock is 03:00 and Ginny shifts beside him. He tries to control his breathing. Convulsions run through his body. He heads for the bathroom, a hand in front of his mouth. He pukes his guts out—a thick, ill smelling muck. It runs down his chin. Images from the war play in his head. Dead allies. Dark curses. And that cold, cruel voice...

He looks into the mirror. He's underfed. Ribs stick out when he exhales, as if attempted to escape his tired body. His hair is no longer vibrant or silky. This is wrong, he doesn't look like this, he...

"Who are you?" Harry asks. He stares at the mirror. It shifts, like water. And then he sees—

Red eyes.

Dread pools in his stomach.

"No," he whispers. "No it can't be... You're _dead_..."

And it is as if the last wall cracks.

_"Potter,"_ it greets, calmer now, and his mirror reflection raises its chin with a little smile.

"What the bloody hell do you want?" Harry demands, trying to keep his voice low, not wanting to wake Ginny.

_"My life, Potter. I want my life back."_

.

.

First it's all revenge and rage. It describes in details how he will hunt down and dismember each of Harry's friends, explaining the torture methods in details.

As he undergoes Auror training. As he gets the groceries. As he catches criminals. As he makes love to his wife.

Harry sits at the family table and grips his knife so tightly that he cuts himself.

What can he tell them? If he tells them the Dark Lord is residing inside his head, they'll lock him up, perhaps just in case if he's speaking the truth.

.

.

After a while the Dark Lord grows tired with torture. Instead he goes quiet for some time, actually leading Harry to believe he's gone, only to resurface at Harry's weakest moments.

He's growing stronger—and Harry has no idea how he does it, but emotions and memories now transmit to him, things that weren't his. Bitterness. Rage. Hate. His nights are plagued by nightmares. The person he first saw in the mirror was a prophesy of what he was going to become. His weight falls drastically. His cheeks become sunken in, dark half circles under his eyes. His pain is sharp and constant.

Black hair. Pale face. Green eyes.

_Black hair. Pale face. Red eyes._

He's becoming clearer every day now.

"You're not real. You're a product of my imagination."

The contorted version of himself answers, _"Says something about your state of mind, does it not?"_ A chilling laugh. _"But I assure you, Harry, I'm very real."_

Harry smashes the mirror.

Ginny has to remove the shards a little while later, never asking questions she knows he won't answer.

He tries not to look at her while a—fake, fake, fake!—memory of her fucking someone else plays in his mind, someone else entirely, someone else with red eyes.

.

.

Another month, another celebration.

It's one of those must-attend balls, this time arranged by the new owners of Malfoy Manor. No one knows what become of the original owners, but there are rumours of Lucius' silver tongue securing them a family ticket to Azkaban instead of executions.

The old clock hits four in the morning and a witch vomits all over the floor.

Harry ignores it. Instead, he gets a glass from the kitchen. Idly, he wonders if the manor was included in Lucius' bribe; if there was one at all and he's not buried under the Ministry. Their government is corrupt and they're too tired to do anything about it. In the kitchen, house-elves run around, cleaning up the mess of their masters. Hermione's shouts for justice were ignored. _"This is _peace_ time,"_ they'd scolded, _"People aren't ready for change."_

Harry wanders the grand halls, careful not to step on the unconscious wizards.

The last time he saw George Weasley he was sobbing and bashing his fists against a restroom mirror. Tonight, Harry finds him sitting in a guest room, a bottle of cheap booze in his hand. He's never sober these days. Perhaps the alcohol makes him feel a little more alive, a little more touch with his lost half. It makes the pain of stopping in the middle of a sentence—waiting for someone to finish it—_fleeting_.

"May I sit?"

A slight nod.

Harry slumps down beside him. Colourless liquid sloshes around inside the bottle. George's hands haven't stopped shaking since the Battle of Hogwarts. Harry helps him pour the drink into the glass.

"How do you do it?" he breathes, turning to George. Slowly, George turns back to him.

It's like watching his red haired reflection. But even the red is no longer vibrant and silky. The lips are cracked with tiny droplets of blood, cheeks hollow and sunken. So is his stomach, almost carved inwards, body thin and gaunt. He _stinks_. But worst of all are his eyes, dull and lifeless, telling tales of lone nights and mirrors and despair, playfulness as dead as his brother.

George considers the question. He shrugs. Hands him the bottle.

Harry takes a swig.

.

.

He stands in his bedroom, staring down at his children. He's seen them torn apart so many times now, he's almost surprised to find them alive. Ginny sleeps, too.

Bitterness wells up in his chest. They do not have their minds shattered like this. For them the war is over—for Harry it has just begun. He is so, so tired.

Harry closes his eyes

(for a moment, only for a moment)

and when he opens them, his hand rests over his sleeping wife's neck. His long thin fingers twitch in anticipation, ready to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until her mouth foams like a dog and then squeeze some more, fitting for a mudblood bitch like her—

Mudblood bitch like her?!

A convulsion moves through the entirety of Harry's body. _Oh Merin. I almost... I almost..._

Like a coward, he leaves a letter. He does not dare stay until morning—not if Voldemort somehow gains control again.

.

.

Nobody's come to get him. Not shocking—Voldemort keeps him on full alert, making him snappish and exhausted, lips somehow not moving when people ask what's wrong. He lives in a little room in London, alone with his demon. The windows and doors are bolted shut. He lives on canned food. Often he finds himself staring into the wall, or sitting in a corner rocking back and forth.

Voldemort stops his relentless power play one day. Calmly, and somehow very reasonable, he explains, "I could offer you relief, you know. The rest you've sought for so long. I know you're beyond tired. Nobody cares for your battles anyway."

Harry closes his eyes, a crazy calm taking over. He realizes his error a second too late and screams "No!"—but it is already too late. Green eyes close, forever.

.

.

They renew their marriage and go to a honeymoon in Greece.

The wizarding media revels at their hero's return, and the papers are filled with pictures and quotes which will go into books, in time. Why, he's even talking about writing a book about mental illness—a relatively new phenomena in the wizarding world. Everybody's so _understanding_. Harry thanks them in well written speeches. In an interview he says he wants to move into politics, and learn more about the traditional wizarding ways so to mix the old with the new.

Ginny is happiest of all.

They stand on a beach and she tells him how worried she's been and how happy she is that he's sane again. She hugs him, crying. He hugs back, arms no longer shaking after the war. They part, Ginny's face glistering with tears. But something's wrong. "Harry," she asks, frowning, "why are your eyes red?"

"All the better to see you with, my dear," Voldemort replies. "_Obliviate_."

.

.

Look closer.

As Hermione grins madly at her parents' funeral, their death sudden and unexpected.

Look closer.

As Ron's mask shatters and his expression grows weary and unimpressed, looking around at the Burrow with a sneer on his face.

Look closer.

As Harry smiles when he thinks no one's looking, triumph shining in blood red eyes.

.

.

**A/N:** Don't spoil the ending in the reviews. Tried to experiment with a super simplistic style here, very unlike my other work.


End file.
